Question 1 (Suggested time - 40 minutes. This question counts one-third of the total essay section score).
Carefully read the two poems. Both poems address an animal created by God's hand, but the tone of addressing each animal is very different in the two poems. In a well-organized essay, distinguish between the attitudes (toward the animal) expressed in the poems and discuss the techniques used to present these tones. You may want to consider imagery, diction, content, and style (repetition) and use specific textual references as support for the tone of each poem.
"The Lamb"
by William Blake
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life & bid thee feed,
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb;
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child;
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
"The Tyger" by William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dead grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Typed from: The Norton Anthology English Literature, 7th ed., Volume 2.
Songs of Experience demonstrate these contradictions excellently, effectively and very well.
Songs of Experience is a collection of poems that explore the adult world. Experience brings cares, duties and responsibilities. Innocence cannot last forever, you have to experience politics, law and religion. An example of this kind of poetry is The Tiger. This is a very powerful poem. Some words that are used to show this are, burning, immortal, fearful, hammer, chain, furnace, deadly and terror. The scheme that is used for this poem is symmetrical and has rhyming couplets. It is set out in six even verses. The poem talks to the tiger, asking it questions, “What immortal eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”. He admires such a powerful creation. It must have been immortal. This poem gives very powerful images, “forests of the night burn the fire of thine eyes”, “twist the sinews”. Some words that are used to describe the industrial or working part of this poem are hammer.
Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794) juxtapose the innocent, pastoral world of childhood against an adult world of corruption and repression; while such poems as “The Lamb" represent a meek virtue, poems like “The Tyger” exhibit opposing, darker forces. Thus the collection as a whole explores the value and limitations of two different perspectives on the world. Many of the poems fall into pairs, so that the same situation or problem is seen through the lens of innocence first and then experience. Blake does not identify himself wholly with either view; most of the poems are dramatic—that is, in the voice of a speaker other than the poet himself. Blake stands outside innocence and experience, in a distanced position from which he hopes to be able to recognize and correct the fallacies of both. In particular, he pits himself against despotic authority, restrictive morality, sexual repression, and institutionalized religion; his great insight is into the way these separate modes of control work together to squelch what is most holy in human beings.
The Songs of Innocence dramatize the naive hopes and fears that inform the lives of children and trace their transformation as the child grows into adulthood. Some of the poems are written from the perspective of children, while others are about children as seen from an adult perspective. Many of the poems draw attention to the positive aspects of natural human understanding prior to the corruption and distortion of experience. Others take a more critical stance toward innocent purity: for example, while Blake draws touching portraits of the emotional power of rudimentary Christian values, he also exposes—over the heads, as it were, of the innocent—Christianity’s capacity for promoting injustice and cruelty.
The Songs of Experience work via parallels and contrasts to lament the ways in which the harsh experiences of adult life destroy what is good in innocence, while also articulating the weaknesses of the innocent perspective “The Tyger,” for example, attempts to account for real, negative forces in the universe, which innocence fails to confront). These latter poems treat sexual morality in terms of the repressive effects of jealousy, shame, and secrecy, all of which corrupt the ingenuousness of innocent love. With regard to religion, they are less concerned with the character of individual faith than with the institution of the Church, its role in politics, and its effects on society and the individual mind. Experience thus adds a layer to innocence that darkens its hopeful vision while compensating for some of its blindness.
"To see a World in a grain of sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the Palm of your hand And Eternity in an Hour." from Auguries of Innocence
William Blake was born on November 28, 1757 in London, the third of five children. His father James was a hosier, and could only afford to give William enough schooling to learn the basics of reading and writing, though for a short time he was able to attend a drawing school run by Henry Par.
William worked in his father's shop until his talent for drawing became so obvious that he was apprenticed to engraver James Basire at age 14. He finished his apprenticeship at age 21, and set out to make his living as an engraver.
Blake married Catherine Boucher at age 25, and she worked with him on most of his artistic creations. Together they published a book of Blake's poems and drawings called Songs of Innocence.
Blake engraved the words and pictures on copper plates (a method he claimed he received in a dream), and Catherine coloured the plates and bound the books. Songs of Innocence sold slowly during Blake's lifetime, indeed Blake struggled close to poverty for much of his life.
More successful was a series of copperplate engravings Blake did to illustrate the Book of Job for a new edition of the Old Testament.
Blake did not have a head for business, and he turned down publisher's requests to focus on his own subjects. In his choice of subject Blake was often guided by his gentle, mystical views of Christianity. Songs of Experience (1794) was followed by Milton (1804-1808), and Jerusalem (1804-1820).
In 1800 Blake gained a patron in William Hayley, who commissioned him to illustrate his Life of Cowper, and to create busts of famous poets for his house in Felpham, Suurey.
While at Felpham, Blake was involved in a bizarre episode which could have proven disastrous; he was accused by a drunken soldier of cursing the king, and on this testimony he was brought to trial for treason. The cae against Blake proved flimsy, and he was cleared of the charges.
Blake poured his whole being into his work. The lack of public recognition sent him into a severe depression which lasted from 1810-1817, and even his close friends thought him insane.
Unlike painters like Gainsborough, Blake worked on a small scale; most of his engravings are little more than inches in height, yet the detailed rendering is superb and exact. Blake's work received far more public acclaim after his death, and an excerpt from his poem Milton was set to music, becoming a sort of unofficial Christian anthem of English nationalism in the 20th century.
William Blake died on August 12, 1827, and is buried in an unmarked grave at Bunhill Fields, London. Web Resources: Web Museum - William Blake
Songs of Innocence was published in 1789. This was a collection of poems all about lambs, children and the happy things in live. Then he published a collection of poems called Songs of Experience, which was published in 1794. These poems where about more adult things like religion, the way that adults had to work and the way that the industrial revolution came into the perspective. These two collections contain some of the best-known poems in the English language. Blake really explores the contradicting stakes of innocence and experience. The Lamb from Songs of Innocence and The Tiger fro
Other poems by William Blake:
Introduction Piping down the valleys wild, The Shepherd How sweet is the Shepherd's sweet lot! The Echoing Green The Sun does arise, The Lamb Little Lamb, who made thee? The Little Black Boy My mother bore me in the southern wild, The Blossom Merry, Merry Sparrow! The Chimney Sweeper When my mother died I was very young, The Little Boy Lost Father! father! where are you going? [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#boyfound|The Little Boy Found ]]The little boy lost in the lonely fen, [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#laughing|Laughing Song ]]When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#cradle|A Cradle Song ]]Sweet dreams, form a shade [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#image|The Divine Image ]]To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#thursday|Holy Thursday ]]'T was on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean, [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#night|Night ]]The sun descending in the west, [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#spring|Spring ]]Sound the Flute! [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#nurse|Nurse's Song ]]When the voices of children are heard on the green [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#infant|Infant Joy ]]I have no name: A Dream Once a dream did weave a shade On Another's Sorrow Can I see another's woe, And not be in sorrow too?
The Clod and the Pebble - Wikimedia
'The Clod and the Pebble' is an extremely compact comparison between unselfish love, represented by the clod, and selfish love, represented by the pebble. It is part of the collection of poems in the 'Songs of Experience'.
The Clod
A clod is a lump of earth or clay, and therefore insubstantial and weak.
Here, it represents a state of pure, childlike innocence, offering its views on the sanctity of love. It comments that it "seeketh not itself to please,/ Nor for itself hath any care", suggesting simply that it is an unselfish emotion. The fact that these ideas must be stated by the clod indicates an implicit comparison with other humanly feelings, which are therefore implied to be selfish in relation. It is also implied that there is a degree of self-sacrifice involved, since "for another [it] gives its ease". The clod finally comments that love "builds a Heaven in Hell's despair", an idea suggested in Milton's 'Paradise Lost': ultimately, happiness is a state of mind, and can therefore be achieved regardless of one's external circumstances.
The Clod and the Pebble
||
'Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a heaven in hell's despair.'
So sung a little clod of clay, Trodden with the cattle's feet; But a pebble of the brook Warbled out these meters meet:
'Love seeketh only Self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a hell in heaven's despite.'
Read once more and use a SOAP sheet to analysis this Poem.
(Suggested time - 40 minutes. This question counts one-third of the total essay section score).
Carefully read the two poems. Both poems address an animal created by God's hand, but the tone of addressing each animal is very different in the two poems. In a well-organized essay, distinguish between the attitudes (toward the animal) expressed in the poems and discuss the techniques used to present these tones. You may want to consider imagery, diction, content, and style (repetition) and use specific textual references as support for the tone of each poem.
by William Blake
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life & bid thee feed,
By the stream & o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb;
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child;
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
by William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dead grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Typed from: The Norton Anthology English Literature, 7th ed., Volume 2.
Songs of Experience is a collection of poems that explore the adult world. Experience brings cares, duties and responsibilities. Innocence cannot last forever, you have to experience politics, law and religion. An example of this kind of poetry is The Tiger. This is a very powerful poem. Some words that are used to show this are, burning, immortal, fearful, hammer, chain, furnace, deadly and terror. The scheme that is used for this poem is symmetrical and has rhyming couplets. It is set out in six even verses. The poem talks to the tiger, asking it questions, “What immortal eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”. He admires such a powerful creation. It must have been immortal. This poem gives very powerful images, “forests of the night burn the fire of thine eyes”, “twist the sinews”. Some words that are used to describe the industrial or working part of this poem are hammer.
Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794) juxtapose the innocent, pastoral world of childhood against an adult world of corruption and repression; while such poems as “The Lamb" represent a meek virtue, poems like “The Tyger” exhibit opposing, darker forces. Thus the collection as a whole explores the value and limitations of two different perspectives on the world. Many of the poems fall into pairs, so that the same situation or problem is seen through the lens of innocence first and then experience. Blake does not identify himself wholly with either view; most of the poems are dramatic—that is, in the voice of a speaker other than the poet himself. Blake stands outside innocence and experience, in a distanced position from which he hopes to be able to recognize and correct the fallacies of both. In particular, he pits himself against despotic authority, restrictive morality, sexual repression, and institutionalized religion; his great insight is into the way these separate modes of control work together to squelch what is most holy in human beings.
The Songs of Innocence dramatize the naive hopes and fears that inform the lives of children and trace their transformation as the child grows into adulthood. Some of the poems are written from the perspective of children, while others are about children as seen from an adult perspective. Many of the poems draw attention to the positive aspects of natural human understanding prior to the corruption and distortion of experience. Others take a more critical stance toward innocent purity: for example, while Blake draws touching portraits of the emotional power of rudimentary Christian values, he also exposes—over the heads, as it were, of the innocent—Christianity’s capacity for promoting injustice and cruelty.
The Songs of Experience work via parallels and contrasts to lament the ways in which the harsh experiences of adult life destroy what is good in innocence, while also articulating the weaknesses of the innocent perspective “The Tyger,” for example, attempts to account for real, negative forces in the universe, which innocence fails to confront). These latter poems treat sexual morality in terms of the repressive effects of jealousy, shame, and secrecy, all of which corrupt the ingenuousness of innocent love. With regard to religion, they are less concerned with the character of individual faith than with the institution of the Church, its role in politics, and its effects on society and the individual mind. Experience thus adds a layer to innocence that darkens its hopeful vision while compensating for some of its blindness.
William Blake
"To see a World in a grain of sandAnd a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the Palm of your hand
And Eternity in an Hour."
from Auguries of Innocence
William Blake was born on November 28, 1757 in London, the third of five children. His father James was a hosier, and could only afford to give William enough schooling to learn the basics of reading and writing, though for a short time he was able to attend a drawing school run by Henry Par.
William worked in his father's shop until his talent for drawing became so obvious that he was apprenticed to engraver James Basire at age 14. He finished his apprenticeship at age 21, and set out to make his living as an engraver.
Blake married Catherine Boucher at age 25, and she worked with him on most of his artistic creations. Together they published a book of Blake's poems and drawings called Songs of Innocence.
Blake engraved the words and pictures on copper plates (a method he claimed he received in a dream), and Catherine coloured the plates and bound the books. Songs of Innocence sold slowly during Blake's lifetime, indeed Blake struggled close to poverty for much of his life.
More successful was a series of copperplate engravings Blake did to illustrate the Book of Job for a new edition of the Old Testament.
Blake did not have a head for business, and he turned down publisher's requests to focus on his own subjects. In his choice of subject Blake was often guided by his gentle, mystical views of Christianity. Songs of Experience (1794) was followed by Milton (1804-1808), and Jerusalem (1804-1820).
In 1800 Blake gained a patron in William Hayley, who commissioned him to illustrate his Life of Cowper, and to create busts of famous poets for his house in Felpham, Suurey.
While at Felpham, Blake was involved in a bizarre episode which could have proven disastrous; he was accused by a drunken soldier of cursing the king, and on this testimony he was brought to trial for treason. The cae against Blake proved flimsy, and he was cleared of the charges.
Blake poured his whole being into his work. The lack of public recognition sent him into a severe depression which lasted from 1810-1817, and even his close friends thought him insane.
Unlike painters like Gainsborough, Blake worked on a small scale; most of his engravings are little more than inches in height, yet the detailed rendering is superb and exact. Blake's work received far more public acclaim after his death, and an excerpt from his poem Milton was set to music, becoming a sort of unofficial Christian anthem of English nationalism in the 20th century.
William Blake died on August 12, 1827, and is buried in an unmarked grave at Bunhill Fields, London.
Web Resources:
Web Museum - William Blake
Songs of Innocence was published in 1789. This was a collection of poems all about lambs, children and the happy things in live. Then he published a collection of poems called Songs of Experience, which was published in 1794. These poems where about more adult things like religion, the way that adults had to work and the way that the industrial revolution came into the perspective. These two collections contain some of the best-known poems in the English language. Blake really explores the contradicting stakes of innocence and experience. The Lamb from Songs of Innocence and The Tiger fro
Other poems by William Blake:
Introduction Piping down the valleys wild, The Shepherd How sweet is the Shepherd's sweet lot! The Echoing Green The Sun does arise, The Lamb Little Lamb, who made thee? The Little Black Boy My mother bore me in the southern wild, The Blossom Merry, Merry Sparrow! The Chimney Sweeper When my mother died I was very young, The Little Boy Lost Father! father! where are you going? [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#boyfound|The Little Boy Found ]]The little boy lost in the lonely fen, [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#laughing|Laughing Song ]]When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#cradle|A Cradle Song ]]Sweet dreams, form a shade [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#image|The Divine Image ]]To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#thursday|Holy Thursday ]]'T was on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean, [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#night|Night ]]The sun descending in the west, [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#spring|Spring ]]Sound the Flute! [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#nurse|Nurse's Song ]]When the voices of children are heard on the green [[http://theotherpages.org/poems/blake03.html#infant|Infant Joy ]]I have no name: A Dream Once a dream did weave a shade On Another's Sorrow Can I see another's woe, And not be in sorrow too?
'The Clod and the Pebble' is an extremely compact comparison between unselfish love, represented by the clod, and selfish love, represented by the pebble. It is part of the collection of poems in the 'Songs of Experience'.
The Clod
A clod is a lump of earth or clay, and therefore insubstantial and weak.Here, it represents a state of pure, childlike innocence, offering its views on the sanctity of love. It comments that it "seeketh not itself to please,/ Nor for itself hath any care", suggesting simply that it is an unselfish emotion. The fact that these ideas must be stated by the clod indicates an implicit comparison with other humanly feelings, which are therefore implied to be selfish in relation. It is also implied that there is a degree of self-sacrifice involved, since "for another [it] gives its ease". The clod finally comments that love "builds a Heaven in Hell's despair", an idea suggested in Milton's 'Paradise Lost': ultimately, happiness is a state of mind, and can therefore be achieved regardless of one's external circumstances.
||
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair.'
So sung a little clod of clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet;
But a pebble of the brook
Warbled out these meters meet:
'Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite.'
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair.'
So sung a little clod of clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet;
But a pebble of the brook
Warbled out these meters meet:
'Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite.'